In our urban society,
we find ourselves teaching as abstractions the concepts that to Jesus and the disciples were
an unexamined part of routine daily life. Jesus was very down-to-earth in
his illustrations, but we have lost that closeness to the basics of everyday
living.

Many of today's children have never seen or petted a sheep;
they have no idea how wine is made, and they have
never taken part in a wheat harvest - in fact,
most of them have never handled bread dough or seen it rise. Nor have they
eaten the smoked fish or whole-grain bread of the Jesus
Picnic.

Exploring our physical world makes Jesus' illustrations clearer, and confirmation instruction, the time of the opening
of minds, is a special time to explore our world in Bible terms.

Your local chapter of Thrivent may be helpful in obtaining bus transportation.
If you can get a bus, fill it up with the younger and older members of the
congregation, and make your field trips congregational events.

Please ask your pastor to guide the field trip through the church
proper, and perhaps to other places of worship
as well. Walking the labyrinth can open deeper discussions
on the nature of prayer.

At the very least, take a trip through the kitchen: buy some frozen bread
dough, thaw it, and let your class make cinnamon rolls. They will be amazed
by both the rising time and the smell of baking bread. And they will begin
to understand who we are as Christians: we are
the yeast in the dough, the leaven in the lump.